ASCD Bestseller! Today's teachers face a daunting challenge: how to ensure a positive school experience for their students, many of whom carry the burden of adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, poverty, divorce, abandonment, and numerous other serious social issues. Spurred by her personal experience and extensive exploration of brain-based learning, author Marilee Sprenger explains how brain science—what we know about how the brain works—can be applied to social-emotional learning. Specifically, she addresses how to - Build strong, caring relationships with students to give them a sense of belonging. - Teach and model empathy, so students feel understood and can better understand others. - Awaken students' self-awareness, including the ability to name their own emotions, have accurate self-perceptions, and display self-confidence and self-efficacy. - Help students manage their behavior through impulse control, stress management, and other positive skills. - Improve students' social awareness and interaction with others. - Teach students how to handle relationships, including with people whose backgrounds differ from their own. - Guide students in making responsible decisions. Offering clear, easy-to-understand explanations of brain activity and dozens of specific strategies for all grade levels, Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain is an essential guide to creating supportive classroom environments and improving outcomes for all our students.

Creating a healthy, social classroom environment.

An orientation to affective neuroscience as it relates to educators. In this ground-breaking collection, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—an affective neuroscientist, human development psychologist, and former public school teacher—presents a decade of work with the potential to revolutionize educational theory and practice by deeply enriching our understanding of the complex connection between emotion and learning. With her signature talent for explaining and interpreting neuroscientific findings in practical, teacher-relevant terms, Immordino-Yang offers two simple but profound ideas: first, that emotions are such powerful motivators of learning because they activate brain mechanisms that originally evolved to manage our basic survival; and second, that meaningful thinking and learning are inherently emotional, because we only think deeply about things we care about. Together, these insights suggest that in order to motivate students for academic learning, produce deep understanding, and ensure the transfer of educational experiences into real-world skills and careers, educators must find ways to leverage the emotional aspects of learning. Immordino-Yang has both the gift for captivating readers with her research and the ability to connect this research to everyday learning and teaching. She examines true stories of learning success with relentless curiosity and an illuminating mixture of the scientific and the human. What are feelings, and how does the brain support them? What role do feelings play in the brain's learning process? This book unpacks these crucial questions and many more, including the neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary origins of creativity, facts and myths about mirror neurons, and how the perspective of social and affective neuroscience can inform the design of learning technologies.

Learn how the brain processes mathematical concepts and why some students develop math anxiety! David A. Sousa discusses the cognitive mechanisms for learning mathematics and the environmental and developmental factors that contribute to mathematics difficulties. This award-winning text examines: Children’s innate number sense and how the brain develops an understanding of number relationships Rationales for modifying lessons to meet the developmental learning stages of young children, preadolescents, and adolescents How to plan lessons in PreK–12 mathematics Implications of current research for planning mathematics lessons, including discoveries about memory systems and lesson timing Methods to help elementary and secondary school teachers detect mathematics difficulties Clear connections to the NCTM standards and curriculum focal points

An orientation to affective neuroscience as it relates to educators. In this ground-breaking collection, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—an affective neuroscientist, human development psychologist, and former public school teacher—presents a decade of work with the potential to revolutionize educational theory and practice by deeply enriching our understanding of the complex connection between emotion and learning. With her signature talent for explaining and interpreting neuroscientific findings in practical, teacher-relevant terms, Immordino-Yang offers two simple but profound ideas: first, that emotions are such powerful motivators of learning because they activate brain mechanisms that originally evolved to manage our basic survival; and second, that meaningful thinking and learning are inherently emotional, because we only think deeply about things we care about. Together, these insights suggest that in order to motivate students for academic learning, produce deep understanding, and ensure the transfer of educational experiences into real-world skills and careers, educators must find ways to leverage the emotional aspects of learning. Immordino-Yang has both the gift for captivating readers with her research and the ability to connect this research to everyday learning and teaching. She examines true stories of learning success with relentless curiosity and an illuminating mixture of the scientific and the human. What are feelings, and how does the brain support them? What role do feelings play in the brain's learning process? This book unpacks these crucial questions and many more, including the neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary origins of creativity, facts and myths about mirror neurons, and how the perspective of social and affective neuroscience can inform the design of learning technologies.

The burgeoning multidisciplinary field of social and emotional learning (SEL) now has a comprehensive and definitive handbook covering all aspects of research, practice, and policy. The prominent editors and contributors describe state-of-the-art intervention and prevention programs designed to build students' skills for managing emotions, showing concern for others, making responsible decisions, and forming positive relationships. Conceptual and scientific underpinnings of SEL are explored and its relationship to children's and adolescents' academic success and mental health examined. Issues in implementing and assessing SEL programs in diverse educational settings are analyzed in depth, including the roles of school- and district-level leadership, teacher training, and school-family partnerships.

If there's one thing teachers can agree on, it's that social and emotional learning is a hot topic in education. But beyond this, questions still remain. Many educators find themselves wondering, what exactly is SEL? How should it be taught? What does it look like in the classroom? And, is it our job as educators to teach students non-academic life skills? Based on author Dr. Amy Cranston's experiences with implementing SEL from a practical standpoint, this book defines SEL and digs into the real work of how to incorporate SEL in K-12 schools. It makes the connection between research and practical application and the real-life examples and testimonials of SEL in the classroom will help educators effectively implement SEL programming. Featured case studies demonstrate real-world applications of SEL in different types of K-12 learning environments. It addresses students' different interests and varied learning styles and features Mindful Moments that encourage understanding, learning, and reflection. By supporting the emotional needs of students, educators will not only address issues such as discipline problems and absenteeism, but will help their students to be more mindful and self-aware. By encouraging spaces where intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are celebrated and cultivated, educators will set the foundation for all students to succeed.

Research on the brain has shown that emotion plays a key role in learning, but how can educators apply that research in their day-to-day interactions with students? What are some teaching strategies that take advantage of what we know about the brain? Engage the Brain answers these questions with easy-to-understand explanations of the brain's emotion networks and how they affect learning, paired with specific suggestions for classroom strategies that can make a real difference in how and what students learn. Readers will discover how to design an environment for learning that Makes material relevant, relatable, and engaging. Accommodates tremendous variability in students' brains by giving them multiple options for how to approach their learning. Incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and guidelines. Uses process-oriented feedback and other techniques to spark students' intrinsic motivation. Author Allison Posey explains how schools can use the same "emotional brain" concepts to create work environments that reduce professional stress and the all-too-common condition of teacher burnout. Real-world classroom examples, along with reflection and discussion questions, add to the usefulness of Engage the Brain as a practical, informative guide for understanding how to capture the brain's incredible power and achieve better results at all grade levels, in all content areas.

In this groundbreaking book, nationally recognized leaders in education and psychology examine the relationships between social-emotional education and school success—specifically focusing on interventions that enhance student learning. Offering scientific evidence and practical examples, this volume points out the many benefits of social emotional learning programs, including: building skills linked to cognitive development, encouraging student focus and motivation, improving relationships between students and teachers, creating school-family partnerships to help students achieve, and increasing student confidence and success.

Develop and cultivate social-emotional learning to create a new school climate! As research on the positive outcomes of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) are emerging, schools and districts across the country are adopting the practices and processes to improve student outcomes and teacher capacity. The real-world experiences and evidence-based strategies outlined in this book will guide implementation of a practical and sustainable social emotional learning program. In addition to an integrated workbook readers will find: recommendations for steps with each strategy in an implementation rubric reflection questions to promote deeper thinking on SEL resources to explore at the end of each chapter